Convicted criminal Peter Watton, 37, lay in wait for his victim before pouncing and dragging her into the bushes and raping her eight times

Peter Watton, 37, lay in wait for his victim before pouncing and dragging her into the bushes and raping her eight times.

Watton had only been released from prison on licence two days before he threatened her with a knife, forced her to perform sexual acts on him and led her to the banks of the River Dee, where she feared she was going to die.

Today, the Recorder of Chester, Judge Elgan Edwards, branded Watton an "extremely dangerous man" as he gave him an extended sentence of 24 years at Chester Crown Court.

Watton, who refused to attend court to hear his punishment, will serve 20 years behind bars for the horrific crimes and the final four years on licence.

Judge Edwards branded Watton, from Chester, a "significant risk of serious harm to all women" saying it was the "worse rape case he had ever heard" in his long years as a judge.

Judge Edwards condemned Watton for refusing to attend court, despite forcing his victim to relive her experiences in court.

As the sentence was read out, Watton's family, including his mother, hung their heads and sobbed from the public gallery, but Judge Edwards said the criminal had not shown a "shred of remorse".

"He put forward a ludicrous defence that she had consented on a woodland path on a wet day in June," he said.

"In my judgement the defendant is a dominating and extremely dangerous man, a man who was calculating, and a man who has his own way whatever the views of other people where.

"This is the worst case of rape and repeated rape I have ever had the misfortune to come across."

The defence argued Watton had never been physically violent towards his victim, but in a victim impact statement, read to the court by prosecutor Owen Edwards, the victim said she no longer felt safe and had nightmares about her abduction.

Mr Edwards said: "She's lost weight, she feels embarrassment, she has nightmares and finds it really difficult to work."

Watton has 27 convictions for 132 offences, including kidnapping and robbery offences in 2010 for which he served half of a six-year sentence before being released on licence last year.

Two days later, he lay in wait for his victim, before ambushing her and raping her eight times, assaulting her with objects, before she finally ran for her life nine hours later.

In 1999 Watton was jailed for six years after attempting to violently abduct a lone woman when she was driving in Crewe after absconding from HMP Sudburyand stealing a car with a fellow inmate.

He had pretended he was a plain clothes police officer, pulled her over for speeding and tried to abduct her on the side of the road, punching her repeatedly in the face.

But the court heard how, despite the victim claiming the attack had a sexual element to it, Watton had never been charged with a sexually motivated crime in spite of his lengthy record.

Watton walked out of an open prison in 2009, and three days later he kidnapped a teenager from a house in Crewe.